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Sunday, 7 July 2013

AIRPORT ‘TO DEFINITELY OPEN’ THIS YEAR

The Sikhuphe Airport, dubbed King Mswati’s vanity
project, will definitely be ready to open before the end of 2013, according to Solomon Dube, Director of the Swaziland Civil Aviation Authority (SWACAA).

But, he made it clear that it was up to King Mswati III
to decide the opening date.

Dube’s assertion was accepted at face value by media in
Swaziland, but observers of the continuing Sikhuphe debacle will be sceptical. A
number of ‘opening dates’ have been announced and quietly forgotten in the past.
King Mswati had himself confidently announced planes would be flying into
Sikhuphe in time for the FIFA World Cup, held in neighbouring South Africa.
That was in June 2010: but the tournament came and went, but Sikhuphe remained
unfinished.

Bertram Stewart, Principal Secretary in the Ministry of
Economic Planning and Development told us it would be ready to open before the start
of 2013. It wasn’t and it didn’t.

Stewart has for years been making claims about the
opening date of the airport. In October 2010, Stewart
said the airport would be open by the end of that year. It wasn’t.

Stewart was at
it again in February 2011, when he confidently told media the airport would
be completed by June 2011. It wasn’t. He also said a number of top world
airlines (that he declined to name) were negotiating to use Sikhuphe. Nothing
happened.

To date no international airline has announced it will
use Sikhuphe when it eventually does open. This will mean that even if the airport is
ready to receive planes it could be up to three years before any actually start
to land.

In June 2012, SWACAA Marketing and Corporate Affairs
Director Sabelo Dlamini told
Swazi media that at least three airlines from different countries had
‘shown interest’ in using Sikhuphe, but declined to name them. He remained optimistic about the prospects for Sikhuphe and said SWACAA was talking to
airlines in other countries as well.

But, he also revealed that it could take three years for
an airline to actually start using the airport once it had decided to do so.
‘Normally, airline operators need about three years to prepare for such an exercise
and we are nursing hopes that those we have approached will consider our
proposals,’ he said.